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The out-of-focus, tilt-shifty look in many of the pictures taken with these early 35mm Leicas was due to the film not being in entirely the focal plane. You had to be very careful loading. A redesign of the camera back around 1940 took care of the problem.

Took me a while, but before I looked at the other pictures I decided that while the angle certainly helps mess things up, what really got me was that the sizes of the trucks in comparison to that of the cars are smaller than they are today. I'm used to seeing trucks that are wider, or longer, or both. The "Wheeler Transportation" truck is what starts the whole "it's a model!" thing off for me. It looks like it doesn't belong, and, therefore, nothing else does, either.

At least until you look at the detail of the street cobbles, the weathering on the wheels, and etc., that is.

The Jack Greaves truck is the weirdest, with a bed that looks like a model bed, a person in the window that could go either way, but wheels that look like they are carrying a truck's worth of weight, which is something you never see in models.

After New York's police commissioner banned trucks with advertising sideboards (like the Doublemint ad on the Railway Express truck in lower right), Railway Express Agency tried but failed to convince the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the regulation. In the 1948 decision, Justice Douglas added that "the fact that New York City sees fit to eliminate from traffic this kind of distraction, but does not touch what may be even greater ones in a different category, such as the vivid displays on Times Square, is immaterial."

So I looked at the image again and came up with some reasons why I think it looks like a miniature.

The angle of the camera doesn't seem to have any effect on the miniature. I rotated it, and still looks small.

I think the main reason is the lack of any harsh shadows and bright highlights. It could be early morning, or a cloudy day. A couple of trucks in the foreground do have sun on them, and the illusion seems to fail there. The way the cars are parked may have something to do with it. They are not perfectly parked by today's standards, and the guy on the sidewalk is asking for a ticket. The softness of the details in the above half also lend to the fact that the cars look die cast, and lacking in detail of a full size auto. Lastly, the angle of the shot is from somewhat of a humans eye view if they were looking down onto a table top. That's about it.

The "Freight Station" belonged to the Chicago & North Western Railroad on Fourth Avenue North near First Street. The building still survives, although has no railroad track anymore. Angle of the photo suggests it was shot from the roof of long-gone Security Warehouse.

This picture has an otherworldly quality, particularly when one views the full size version. The angles are unsettling and chaotic, and the vehicles begin to look like tiny toy model versions of their real selves. It's like a noir version of the intro to "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." One almost expects to see John Garfield step out of that doorway.

Okay, I'll stick my neck out. I think these are scale models; cars, trucks and building. The vehicles are all too clean and perfect. No loading docks in sight, nor one human. That was my first impression yesterday and it's still my impression today.

I believe this is one of the freight houses behind the GN depot in Minneapolis. The yard was bisected at 4th Avenue North, where I think the 1939 photo was taken. There is one remaining building that is today used for housing.

I found it interesting that the truck crossing the tracks only had a mirror on the right side. I though that may have been a traffic hazard till I noticed that none of the many vehicles had side mirrors at all!

Never mind the big Minneapolis truckers strike in 1934, in which the National Guard was called in to shoot the strikers in the streets. It's a big deal in Labor history, particularly in Minnesota. But have fun with it.

There is a definite air of artificiality here, in spite of the fact that this
is an authentic photograph of a real-life scene. Is it the rakish angle?
The floating-above-it-all perspective? It screams "scale model" as in
a contrived cityscape in a model-enthusiast's basement.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.